


why we get knocked down

by ODed_on_jingle_jangle



Category: My Candy Love
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fight Club - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Injuries, Minor Original Character(s), Minor Violence, Post-Break Up, Reunions, Tension, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-09-26 09:23:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20387410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ODed_on_jingle_jangle/pseuds/ODed_on_jingle_jangle
Summary: “Go home, Violette.”“Why?” she challenges hotly, taking a step closer into Kim’s personal space. “Fighting is the perfect way to blow off steam, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you told me every time I wiped the blood off your knuckles?”Sometimes it was Kim’s. Sometimes it was someone else’s. No matter who it had belonged to initially, it was always Violette’s to clean.





	why we get knocked down

**Author's Note:**

> So I guess like, when MCLUL first came out ppl were speculating that Nathaniel and Kim were running an underground fight club. I'm pretty sure that's been debunked by now, right? As far as I know, it's not canon but again, I don't play the game, so. I could be wrong about that. 
> 
> ...but what if it was canon? And what if Kim/Violette had an angst-y break up like Candy/Love Interest did? 
> 
> That would be pretty hot.

There’s some guy on guard duty. He stands blocking the door with crossed arms.

“Password,” he demands when Violette comes shuffling up, clad in a sports bra and purple pajama shorts because her proper gyms shorts had ripped, hair gathered in a messy fishtail over her shoulder.

“I know Kim,” she says.

“Didn’t ask if you knew Kim. Asked if you knew the password.”

“I don’t, I’m new,” she says, awkwardly fiddling with her shorts’s drawstrings. “Could you just let me in so I can talk to Kim, please?”

“You sure you wanna go in there?” he asks, smirking at her skeptically. “You’re little even for a girl. Like, no offense or anything, Thumbelina— you’re actually pretty cute. But if you go in there, I don’t think you’re gonna stay cute. If you come back out at all.”

Violette briefly muses grabbing him by the balls and twisting so hard his testicles turn to pulp in her hand. She takes a measured breath and resists the urge, deciding better of it. He’s just one jerk in a world of jerks and he isn’t worth her time.

“Could you just take me to her?” she asks. “Or at least let her know I’m here?”

Door Guard looks her up and down, gives a shrug. “Eh, alright.”

He opens the door and immediately Violette is assaulted with the ruckus of the crowd gathered around the ring. People are shouting, whooping, cursing and cheering. The metallic tang of blood mingles with the heavier, moist odor of sweat she can taste in every breath.

Although it’s been a few years, she recognizes Nathaniel in the ring almost instantly. He’s all lightning fast precision, turning the other guy’s face into hamburger meat before he can even land a blow. Distantly, Violette thinks that she would like to draw him like this.

Or at least capture his essence. That unrelenting drive. This Nathaniel looks comfortable with himself, unlike the careful, rigid Nathaniel of high school who spoke like ink pens and breathed binary code. It would be a fascinating transformation to explore on paper, but, well— Violette isn’t here to draw.

There’s a card table with a betting pool and that’s where Kim is. A girl with rhinestones around her eyes edits the pool, inputing something new with a dry eraser marker. Kim says something to her Violette doesn’t catch and takes a sip from her water bottle.

“Hey, Kim,” Door Guard calls. “Thumbelina here says she knows you.”

Kim looks over and when their eyes meet, she jolts. Water sputters from her lips and Rhinestone Eyes gasps, jerking the dry eraser board out of range. Kim coughs, clearing her throat.

“Hi, Kim.”

“Violette…”

Kim starts toward her in a somnambulate stupor, moving slow and uncertain as if navigating a misty dreamscape. Violette finds herself thinking that Kim is lovely, that the handful of years in between have been good to her. She’s seen pics on social media, sure, a few vids here and there Kim posted of her workout routine.

It’s not the same as seeing her in person though and in person, she’s nothing less than stunning. Muscles packed to a strong, solid frame. Powerful thighs that could crack Violette’s skull like a walnut. The last thing she wants to be thinking of is tracing the sleek washboard of Kim’s abs with her tongue, but it reels through her head anyway, and she prays that she can blame the hot flush of her cheeks on the humidity of the many bodies in this room.

“So she’s cool?” Door Guard asks.

“Y-Yeah, she’s cool.” Kim spares him a glance.

“Good luck, Thumbelina,” he thumps Violette on the back and draws away, weaving his way through more bodies to return to his post.

For a moment they just stare at each other. Violette doesn’t think she’s much to look at, really. She hasn’t changed much, not physically anyway. She’s grown her hair out a bit longer. Her face is slightly more mature, cheekbones and chin subtly sharper where adolescent roundness once was.

“What are you doing here?” Kim asks so softy Violette almost doesn’t hear it.

“Same thing as everyone else,” she answers. “I’m here to fight.”

“No, I meant Amoris, like— wait, what? Fight?” Kim echoes, startled, eyes widening.

“I’ve got some steam to blow off,” she says, holding her head high despite the quickening pace of her heart rate.

Violette has had a rough go of it the past few months, to say the least. She’d been doing well for awhile on her own, traveling here and there, doing commissions and selling her work to galleries. She wasn’t famous by any means, but she did well enough to rent her own little flat in an artsy area she adored and buy herself fancy coffee to sip with cinnamon pastries on the weekends.

Then just like that, it was over. Her work stopped selling. The commissions orders stopped coming in. She doesn’t know what she did wrong, if anything at all. Okay, so perhaps her inspiration had dried up along the way, but that shouldn’t have meant anything— inspiration was nothing but the crutch of the weak. Real art takes self-discipline and Violette had no shortage of that.

Perhaps she simply went out of style. Perhaps people moved on to something fresh, something new, and Violette just became too niche to catch on before it was too late. Lowering her prices didn’t bring anyone back. Neither did advertising.

Foregoing fancy coffee on the weekends turned into foregoing food during the week, if only to make the rent. She couldn’t find full time work and two separate part time retail jobs turned out not to be enough, either.

So here she is, once again in Amoris, nearly twenty-four and moving back in with her father. Violette had hoped she was going places and instead she’s just ended up right where she started. Today is the day she moved back into her childhood bedroom with some of the bunnies still on the walls, faded, yellowed wallpaper curling because neither she nor her father ever bothered to finish ripping it up. She just pasted posters upon posters over it as a preteen; bands and flowers and motivational mantras in bright, fun fonts.

Today is not only the day she’s taken ten steps back from the life she thought she was making for herself, it is also her mother’s birthday. But she can’t celebrate it with her, or even talk to her about what it is she’s going through, ask for her guidance about where to go from here. She could place another handmade birthday card next to the urn on the mantle and try to stay standing under the pressure of its silence— or she could come here. Come here and fight, explode, let the fury fly into her fists. Come here and take her rage out on people who have nothing to do with her mother’s loss or her life’s setbacks.

Kim stares at her for a very long moment, brows knitting as her eyes pass over the pajama shorts.

“Go home, Violette.”

“Why?” she challenges hotly, taking a step closer into Kim’s personal space. “Fighting is the perfect way to blow off steam, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you told me every time I wiped the blood off your knuckles?”

Sometimes it was Kim’s. Sometimes it was someone else’s. No matter who it had belonged to initially, it was always Violette’s to clean.

Kim swallows and vehemently sweeps an arm toward the ring where Nathaniel stands victorious, Hamburger Face fallen at his feet.

“I’m not going to let you be that guy on the ground just because you’re going through some junk and getting all hotheaded!”

“Let me?” Violette hisses, incensed. “Newsflash, it’s not your choice! We’re not kids anymore! You and Candy don’t get to make yourselves feel good by protecting me from all the bullies!”

Kim gapes, taken aback. Violette whirls and turns to Rhinestone Eyes with the betting pool.

“Add me,” she says.

Rhinestone Eyes swipes her tongue over her lip, shoots a nervous glance to Kim before she uncaps the marker anyway. Violette turns around and shuffles through the throngs just to get somewhere else. Kim calls after her and her gut instinct is to turn back, but she shoves it down deep and busies herself with getting water from the drinking fountain.

She makes her way closer to the ring as she watches the next fight, a pair of girls. One has her wrists wrapped in hot pink tape, the other’s tank top sports a black and white cow pattern. These girls aren’t professionals like Nathaniel or Kim, Violette can tell.

They don’t move with the precision that either of them do, they are sloppier and they aren’t as well balanced. Cow Shirt grabs Wrist Wraps by the end of her ombre blonde ponytail and yanks with a force. Such a move is fair game here. Everything except weapons are considered fair game here, this much Violette learned through Candy.

Candy doesn’t approve of what happens here. Maybe Violette wouldn’t either if she had it left in her to care. But today has been the worst day, and so she takes the opportunity to escape.

Close as she is to the ring, she can hear the crunch of cartilage when Cow Shirt breaks Wrist Wraps’s nose. Blood spurts from her nostrils and her hands fly to her face as she staggers back. Some people boo, some people cheer. Cow Shirt exits the ring as a winner, jumping jovially over the ropes as a couple of guys drag a disoriented Wrist Wraps away.

Violette moves quick, takes her chance and clambers over before she can think too hard about it.

“Hey, Violette? That you?”

She glances over, sees Nathaniel staring at her from the corner with his brows arched skeptically. Forcing a smile, she gives a small wave.

“It’s been awhile.”

Her apparent opponent climbs over the ropes on the opposite side of the ring, a statuesque girl with legs that must be as long as Violette is tall. Freckles smatter the slope of her prominent nose, dark brown hair pulled back into a bun. Her sports bra boasts a banana yellow jaguar.

“Don’t die,” Nathaniel warns sarcastically, smirking as he shakes his head.

Violette steels her nerves and lunges forward, without so much as a warning, her only acknowledgment to Jaguar Bra the heartbeat their eyes meet. She is not a professional herself, but she’s watched enough of Kim’s matches to have picked up a few things from the boxing and aikido alike.

She makes a show of going to punch, pulls her arm back and pivots her hips, watches Jaguar Bra prepare to parry. Drops low instead and swiftly sweeps her leg out to catch the back of Jaguar Bra’s knee. Her foot doesn’t connect as precisely as she’d hoped, Jaguar Bra only stumbles when Violette had sought to bring her down.

But a stumble is better than nothing and Violette takes the opportunity to rush in, driving her fist upward, eyes locked on the target that is Jaguar Bra’s chin. Jaguar Bra evades messily, scrambling back. Violette’s fist cuts through the air.

Jaguar Bra snaps forward, plowing her knee directly into Violette’s gut. Stars shimmer through Violette’s vision, the breath catapulting from her lungs. She lurches gracelessly and before she can recover, Jaguar Bra’s knuckles smash into her cheek.

The mat rushes up to greet her, Violette lands hard on her hands and knees. Jaguar Bra wastes no time kicking her while she’s down. The toe of her shoe catches Violette’s ribs. She’s capsized onto her side and then Jaguar Bra just keeps kicking, her limbs, her belly, her chest, kicks her flat on her back like a turtle in distress.

Violette flails out, clumsily wraps a hand around Jaguar Bra’s ankle and jerks with everything she’s got. Jaguar Bra crashes down so hard Violette can feel the mat vibrate beneath her skin. She rapidly scrambles up, swaying awkwardly on her legs like a baby giraffe.

Jaguar Bra gives her tit for tat, clawing at ankles for a hold. Violette pinwheels her arms for balance, sloppily kicks out, hears the clack of teeth as her shoe strikes her chin. Blood trickles down her lip and her hands slide from Violette’s legs without purchase.

Violette turns to the crowd, screens it until she finds the face she’s looking for. Kim is right there at the edge of the ring, eyes flashing as she calls out to Violette.

“Watch out!”

Jaguar Bra springs up, tackles Violette down to the mat. Violette struggles to dislodge her greater weight, writhing and twisting to no avail. Her head snaps back as she is punched for the second time tonight, brain spinning like a top inside her skull. Jaguar Bra draws her arm back again and for a moment, it’s like the world is running in slow motion.

Violette watches sickly shine of the lights glisten in the fresh blood on her opponent’s fist. Her body pulls something from a scripted memory and she feels her fingers curl before she cracks the heel of her palm to Jaguar Bra’s jaw. Jaguar Bra grunts, balancing faltering, and Violette squirms out from beneath her.

She takes Jaguar Bra’s flailing arm by the wrist. She adducts it in her grasp, swings her trunk forward as she plants her other hand against her elbow to lock the joint. She watched Kim do this so many times it’s almost second nature. Jaguar Bra gasps, forehead kissed to the mat. She wiggles ineffectively, struggling to push herself up against the unrelenting pressure of Violette’s hold.

“I give,” she admits eventually, pounding the mat with her free hand. “You win.”

Violette releases her and pulls herself to a stand. Adrenaline pistons through her veins. Her head is light as whipped cream and she thrums with the thrill of triumph. Even as she notices blood pitter-patter to the vinyl in front of her, she feels no pain.

“Who wants to go next?” she finds herself calling in a voice that shouldn’t sound as strained as it does, because she doesn’t feel strained at all.

Kim climbs over the ropes as Jaguar Bra hobbles off.

“Ooh,” Violette intones as she balls her hands into fists. “Here to kick my ass, Kim? I guess that’s cool, it’s not like we’re together anymore.”

“No, I’m here cause you look like you’re about to faint,” Kim insists, worry stark in her eyes as she power walks over.

“Faint?” Violette trills a laugh. “I’m not gonna faint, I feel great! I could go all night…?”

Kim’s image blurs before her eyes. The shimmering she saw when Jaguar Bra knocked the breath out of her comes back with a vengeance. She sees a starry sky as the sounds of the gym fade away and then all is eclipsed by oblivion.

* * *

She comes to in a set of familiar arms and the equally familiar scent of cucumber water and citrus spray-on deodorant. Part of her wants to nuzzle into Kim’s neck and inhale a whole lungful and it might even break her heart a little that she can’t. That those days are over.

“Put me down,” she requests hazily.

“In a second,” comes Kim’s calm reply.

“Where are we?”

“Locker room.”

“No wonder it stinks then.”

Kim huffs a sound of amusement and then gently lowers Violette onto the bench. They’re the only two people here, but Violette can still hear the sounds of fighting beyond the walls. More shouts and cheers, meat smacking meat.

“How long was I out?”

“Just a couple minutes. I’d have to call someone if it was more than five, and Nat would never let me hear the end of that.”

Kim settles down behind her and then, then for the first time in almost half a decade, Violette finds her head cradled in her lap. Violette doesn’t protest. This can’t last, it won’t last, but it doesn’t have to. It feels good right now. It’s the only thing that feels good right now, when life has flipped her the bird and she’s beginning to feel her injuries.

The split in her cheek stings, the bruises pounded into her flesh throb dully. She takes a deep breathe and grimaces as her ribs twinge in protest.

“Ow.”

“Yeah, ow,” Kim says, lightly probing her fingertips around the eye Jaguar Bra punched. “This is already puffing up, Violette. It’s probably gonna swell shut.”

Violette hums a noncommittal sound and thinks about how before, she’d reach back and intertwine their fingers. How she more than kind of wants to now.

“Are you gonna tell me what that was all about?” Kim asks, frowning. “Not gonna lie, you freaked me out back there.”

“Why?” Violette asks softly. “You think I’m delicate?”

Kim flinches. “What you said back there about me and Candy…did you mean that?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” Kim asks, a touch of anxiety in her voice. “Because if that’s the way you felt, I’m so sorry. I never defended you to boost my ego and I am so sorry if I ever made you feel that way. I just wanted to help and I’m sure Candy did too.”

“I shouldn’t have said that earlier,” Violette insists, shaking her head. “I always knew you guys just wanted to help. It just got to be stifling sometimes…sometimes it made me feel like I couldn’t take care of myself. Like you no one trusted me to take care of myself.”

“You should’ve told us,” Kim murmurs. “You should’ve told me.”

“You know me. I’ve never been good at speaking up.”

Violette uses her art to speak for herself when the words fail. Creating art comes more naturally to her than forming sentences. Communicating emotion on a canvas portrays more than the mouth can muster, even displaying the feelings so heavy Violette doesn’t think she could chuck them from her tongue if she tried. Her emotions vary and fade into one another like color gradient so sometimes they simply translate into picture truer than they could in words.

Kim bobs her head and looks to the lockers.

“Are you back in Amoris for your mom’s birthday?”

Violette blinks, her stomach doing this weird thing where it leaps up and squishes itself against her rib cage.

“You remembered?”

“Of course I remembered,” Kim grouses. “How could I forget something like that?”

Violette reaches up and lightly touches her cheek. Kim leans into it the way she used to, peers at her from wary, hooded eyes. Violette traces her jaw with tender fingertips and then drops her hand to her side.

“Thank you.”

“Is that why you wanted to fight tonight?” Kim asks.

“Not exactly…I had to move back in with my dad,” she admits.

“Well that’s not the worst thing in the world,” Kim says tersely, giving a light sniff.

Violette knows this, of course. She understands better than most people that you only have your parents for so long, and she doesn’t hate the idea of spending more time with him. But this is besides the point, she thinks, she’s pretty sure Kim’s response has more to do with the way she left things.

“I feel like a failure, Kim,” she sighs softly, shaking her head and then stopping short when the motion makes her seasick. “It’s not that I hate the idea of living here again, but if it was going to happen, I wanted it to be my choice. I didn’t want to have to come crawling back because my work is too passé to pay the rent.”

“Oh,” Kim breathes, her features shifting in realization. “Damn…that’s, that’s rough, Vi. I’m sorry.”

“I am happy to see you again,” she says earnestly, smiling a bit even though it hurts her face. “You look absolutely amazing. Have you been eating cars for breakfast? Or just bench pressing them?”

Kim snorts and grins like a goof. “Girl, shut up.”

“Okay, okay,” Violette relents. “Really though, you look good. Are you good?”

“Mostly,” Kim says, nodding. She hesitates for just a moment and swallows whatever it is she might’ve said, glancing away as she absently sits straighter.

“It didn’t feel as relieving as I thought it would,” Violette mumbles. “Being in the ring, I mean.”

“Yeah, it’s not your thing. And I’m not saying that because I think you’re delicate.” Kim’s gaze darts back to hers, sharp and steady. “I just know fighting can’t do for you what it does for me, because you don’t relax the same way I do. Your hands aren’t made to hit.”

“No?” Violette hums, contemplative. “What do you suppose they’re made for then?”

“Painting,” Kim blurts as though it’s obvious.

“Apparently not,” Violette huffs tiredly. “If that were true, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Call me selfish, but I’m glad you’re here,” Kim goes on, just a hint of shyness in her voice. “I missed you. Don’t me wrong, I wish it was under better circumstances, but still.”

“I don’t hate being back, I’m just kind of discouraged right now.”

Kim tilts her head. “What do you think you’ll do next?”

“Not this.” Violette grimaces. “Ow.”

“You want me to kiss it better?” Kim jokes.

Violette parts her lips, at a loss.

Kim gulps and gives a wince. “Ah, sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, I was just messing around.”

“It’s okay,” Violette says. “Kim…I didn’t break up without because I didn’t love you, you know that, right?”

“Kind of,” she mumbles, low and uncertain.

“I just thought we should get the chance to love other people too,” she divulges, stomach knotting. “We got together in high school and neither of us ever got to have experiences with anybody else. When I had the opportunity to move, breaking up seemed like the right thing to do. To free us both from the obligation and the trials of long distance. I needed some space too, to be alone, to prove I could take care of myself without you and Candy there to protect me all the time.”

“It was awhile ago, Violette,” Kim hums wistfully. “You don’t have to explain yourself now.”

Violette flinches and it has nothing to do with her injuries.

“I’m sorry,” she says in a hush.

“Don’t. You don’t have anything to apologize for.” Kim anxiously kneads at the back of her neck. “I should get back out there…”

Violette wants to ask her not to. But she doesn’t quite have the right.

“Okay.”

Kim swallows again, an uncomfortable sound. Violette stiffly lifts her head to make it easier as she unfolds her legs from underneath. She pushes up from the bench and heads to the door. She curls her hand around the knob and pauses, looking back over her shoulder.

“I didn’t, by the way.”

“Huh?”

“I didn’t love anyone else after you,” Kim says like there’s something stuck in her throat, gaze piercing.

Violette isn’t sure whether to sob or smile. “Neither did I.”

Kim’s hand slips from the knob. “Violette?”

“Hm?”

“Why are you wearing pajama bottoms?”

Violette lets out a short, nervous laugh that lances through her ribs.

“My good shorts ripped.”

Kim laughs too, maybe a little longer than she should, eyes brimming with mist Violette watches her blink away. She shakes her head and rests a hand against her hip.

“Your luck hasn’t changed a bit, huh?”

“Nope.” Violette smiles after all, a weak, wistful thing. “Not at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Side note here, I headcanon that Violette's mom got murdered. It's canon that she's dead, that much I remember, but I don't think how was ever specified. And in that MCLHL episode with the art stuff, wasn't her painting kinda disturbing? Like, didn't she do some fierce dude's face in all red for rage? 
> 
> At that time I was still playing and I thought like, hey, maybe she painted her mom's murderer. Because that's what it looks like in my brain, y'all, so like, that headcanon applies to this fic. I like my Edgy McEdgester burgers with extra angst and suffering sauce, lmaooo. 
> 
> Title from a song. Wrote most of this at school, so I might edit it to be neater later when it's quiet and I have more time.


End file.
